I find it funny that I have the exact opposite problem as everyone else.

I was one of the people who suggested paid tutorial submissions... I like the idea of a Tutorial of the week. It's not that different from when users were asked to tell their best virus (I believe) related story and were sent AO swag for the top stories.

I'm actually disappointed because I can't qualify for the $50 because I'm a mod. To me, the idea of writing for a couple hours and getting the money to buy a case of beer or a bottle of Grey Goose is pretty tempting. As has been mentioned, people have posted tutorials here for years, nothing has changed, except they now have the opportunity to get a little spending money.

I also question your comment regarding "free content to corporations" Eg... Do you think that the people running Slashdot and Digg aren't making money? They are rolling in it, yet they still get user contributions. How about YouTube? YouTube is definitely corporate, and now removes copyrighted materials (something it didn't used to do) and they still get tons of user driven content. Why should AO pay you for your content, people give content to sites all the time.